2023-04-25 19:30:09
Soyinka, who is doing part of her end-of-studies internship at the Abeokuta Regional Hospital, has only one thing in mind: to leave. “I made this decision during yet another university strike”, sighs the 25-year-old medical student. To leave Nigeria and work in Britain, she will have to pass an equivalency exam. ” It wasn’t my original plan at all.she says. I was afraid of being a victim of racism or of being considered a second-class citizen in Europe. But after a while, I understood that it was the best solution to secure my future. »
Driven into exile by an ailing economy – inflation exceeded 22% in March in Nigeria – generalized insecurity, failing infrastructure and low salaries, between 100 and 200 doctors leave the country each month . The World Health Organization (WHO) issued an alert in March on the number of medical workers available in Nigeria. In an attempt to retain them, an MP tabled a bill in early April that would force them to practice for five years in Nigeria before graduating.
While the WHO recommends a ratio of one doctor for 600 patients, the most populous country in Africa (more than 216 million inhabitants) has only one doctor for 10,000 patients, officially. But the crisis could be much more serious according to the president of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), who instead puts forward the figure of one doctor for 30,000 patients. “It’s a huge deficit. Sometimes you have to wait days to see someone when you are sick. This situation obviously delays treatment and increases tensions in the hospital,” Doctor Emeka Orji is alarmed.
In both public and private establishments
However, the latter judges the bill “against the brain drain”, “draconian and impossible to implement” and demands its immediate withdrawal. He would prefer the “problem is dealt with at the source”, with improved working conditions and salaries for health workers in Nigeria. In the country, doctors do not receive insurance or other benefits related to professional risks, increased by the lack of protective equipment in public hospitals. But desertions are just as high in private establishments where salaries are often not much better.
“We lost a lot of members at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and even more among doctors in contact with patients infected with Lassa fever. But there was no compensation for the families,” recalls Okhuaihesuyi Uyilawa, who was NARD President in 2020.
After sixteen years of practice in Nigeria, the 49-year-old man – now based in the United States – claims that he had not even been able to raise 3 million naira (some 6,000 euros) in savings. “We recently had to launch an appeal for donations so that a fellow doctor who suffered from kidney failure could finance his operation! », he exclaims, appalled.
Leader hypocrisy
Every month, at least two doctors leave their posts at the Edo State Regional Specialty Hospital, according to Joshua, who works as a general practitioner there. ” At least 80% of my colleagues dream of going abroad,” he says. This young man of 29 years, graduated two years ago, currently earns 184,000 naira per month (363 euros), while working more than 70 hours per week. “We come to work exhausted and take care of so many patients for starvation wages… We can’t even take care of ourselves,” he regrets.
At the end of the day, the doctors look for all the possible exit doors. Chucks, 38, first thought of teaching medicine in the Caribbean, then considered moving to Saudi Arabia. Before finally opting for the equivalence exam for the United Kingdom. Since August 2021, he has worked in the hospital of a medium-sized town in the north of England, where he has settled with his wife and two children. His salary is “ten times higher” to the one he earned in Nigeria.
“I think my colleagues who practice medicine in the country are wasting their time and wasting their degrees,” he says, with no regrets. The expatriate also blames the hypocrisy of Nigerian leaders, well aware of the catastrophic situation in which the health sector in Nigeria finds itself, “since they themselves refuse to seek treatment in their own country”.
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